


Stretching Bad Bonds

by infectedscrew



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dick is a Cop, Jason is a Physical Therapist, M/M, Officer Grayson, physical therapy AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-06-06 21:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6770155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infectedscrew/pseuds/infectedscrew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Physical Therapy AU - While on the job Dick sustains a bad injury but it’s the forced leave an PT that’s even worse. Although his new PT trainer is doing quite a bit to ease the pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start Of The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> A commissioner wanted a PT!AU between Dick and Jason and both of them struggling with their emotions.

The pain in Dick’s shoulder was intense. It made him want to cry and hit things at the same time.

“Uh, you doin’ okay over there?”

Dick looked up from his desk to focus on the new lab tech, Tim Drake. The young man was carrying a huge stack of files with two coffees balanced perfectly on top.

“One of those better be for me,” he grumbled, holding his good hand out to Tim.

“Well, yes, but you really should be taking it easy,” Tim commented, setting the coffee in front of him.

Dick instantly swept it up and took a long, grateful sip from it. “I am,” he answered once he’d swallowed. He managed a grin when Tim only frowned at him.

“The Commissioner said you should take more time off—“

“Suggested.”

“And stay home or, at the very least, go to PT,” Tim continued as if the interruption hadn’t happened. It was a trick he had learned early on in dealing with Dick. Sometimes it was easier to ignore or talk over him. If one stopped to argue with him, nothing would ever get done.

Dick snorted, swirling his coffee and glowering moodily at the pile of reports he had to go through.

“What? Don’t like PT?”

“I don’t need it,” Dick declared, leaning forward and yanking one of the reports toward himself.

With his head bowed, he couldn’t see the eyebrow rising on Tim’s face but he could practically feel it. He heard a quiet sigh and the shift of Tim’s feet as he started to walk away.

There a tiny bang as someone’s knee connected with Dick's desk leg and an even tinier ‘oop’ as something started to fall.

Dick turned quickly, his arm whipping out to catch the coffee. Just as his finger curled around the cup two very important things happened. One, he realized the cup was empty and two, agony ricocheted up his arm, making him yelp.

Then Gordon’s head was popping out of his office, mustache ruffled. “Grayson! What are you doing here?”

Dick looked at him with watering eyes as a very smug Tim plucked the empty cup from his hand and carried his towering pile down to the evidence locker.

“Don’t give me an answer. You have an appointment to keep. Get out of here and if I see you again, I’m forcing you on leave for a month.”

It took all of Dick’s will to not curse Tim, the stupid, overly-helpful tech, and instead plaster a lopsided smile on his features. He snapped out a small ‘yessir’ as the rest of the room sniggered around him.

“He’s just trying to help,” Barbara pointed out as she handed him his jacket.

“I don’t need any stupid, PT,” he snapped back, taking the jacket but refusing her offer to help him into it.

Barbara rolled her eyes. “Sure, Mr. Hero.”

—

The clinic was bright and cheerful with soft paintings of flowers lining the walls. Dick hated it already. While he didn’t exactly glare at the stacks of old magazines, he did come very close.

It was a Union suggestion that, after any major injury, an Officer had to go through six weeks of physical therapy. For the Gotham PD it was an enforced requirement. All active duty officers, from rookie to detective, had to take a mandatory leave and, upon returning, submit themselves for medical and mental evaluation. With some of the worst thugs in America running around on their streets, they all needed to be at the top of their game.

Except, Dick hated it. The pain and humiliation of suffering through physical therapy practically ensured that he never went to more than one session. He could train and stretch at home, he decided. Besides, Alfred always had some bizarre medicine for him that worked wonders. That was all he needed.

At least, that’s what he thought until he took a bullet to the shoulder two weeks ago.

It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how much he relied on his shoulders. How every little movement of his arms, every tiny shift of his upper back and chest made the wound ache and screech at him. No matter how much he stretched or worked the arm, it only seemed to be worse.

While chasing a perp through the tight alleys of Gotham’s industrial area, a very lucky shot had caught Dick just under his collar bone. What was worse was the fact that the criminal had gotten away. So while Dick was forced to stay home, he had to lay on his couch and agonize that, not only had he lost the guy, he’d also been injured on the job.

The last thing he wanted to do was have some pitying therapist watch him try to lift increasingly heavy balls. That was the part he hated the most. Their condescending faces and quiet tongue clicks as they whisper ‘you poor thing’ and the mocking intonations of ‘you can do it’, ‘you’re so close’.

The moment he had returned to work—to light desk duty more accurately—Gordon had scheduled PT for him.

Fuck them, Dick thought bitterly. They don’t know how much it hurts or how hard he had to work to make sure he stayed at one hundred percent.

It was bad enough when he had to suffer through PT after shattering his kneecap. He’s not going through it again with his shoulder, an injury that was going to put him out for even longer and drag the PT sessions out indefinitely.

“Mr. Grayson,” a young woman’s voice called just as he’d made the choice to leave.

It’s was familiar enough voice that it made him turn and look for the source.

“Stephanie?” He asked, bewildered.

Decked out in scrubs covered in goofy looking cats chasing butterflies was the young blond woman that Dick sometimes saw Tim hang out with. Her blue eyes are wide in the same shock that he felt. It melted away after a moment to be replaced with a good-natured smile.

“I thought I recognized your name,” she said, gesturing for him to follow her through the door and into the main halls of the clinic.

Very reluctantly, he did so. Silently, he hoped that she didn’t notice that he’d been about to bolt.

If she did, she didn’t comment.

“Tim told me about the shoulder,” she chattered easily, checking over his papers as she walked. “That sucks.”

Dick’s eyes narrowed slightly but he can’t bring himself to annoyed with her. “Yup.”

“You’re in luck, though. You’ve been set up with one of our best therapists,” she continued, guiding him through the motions of taking his height and weight. “You don’t look like you weight 190.”

“Muscle,” he said, flexing his good arm.

Stephanie chuckled. “Yes, yes. It’s very nice but I’m going to have to ask you to put your guns away, Officer.”

The light, easy atmosphere that she built went a long way to easing some of Dick’s tension. She was a talker, much like him, and it was nice just to sit and listen to someone else for once. It helped focus his thoughts on something other than the gloomy ones that had been chasing him all morning.

“Blood pressure is good, surprising given your line of work,” she told him, noting it down on the file. “All right, I’m going to take you to our training room. It’s just you today, not a lot of appointments on Tuesdays.”

“Wonder why that is,” Dick mused, out loud.

“Tacos.”

Dick blinked, looking at her.

“Tacos,” Stephanie repeated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Taco Tuesday.”

“You’re right. I should change my entire schedule for my dinner plans,” Dick said, as if taken off guard.

“What? You don’t?” Stephanie was smiling, clearly amused. She waved her hand to a comfortable chair nestled under a window. “Your therapist is Jason Todd. He’s new here but he’s very good at what he does. I’ll go get him.”

Some of the melancholy set back in.

Stephanie must’ve seen it because she leaned down just slightly to squeeze his good shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be over before you know it. Trust me, this guy is good. And in more ways than one.”

The nurse wiggled her eyebrows and before Dick could question what she could possibly mean, she disappeared back through the door. She left Dick to his thoughts.

When Jason didn’t show up in two minutes, Dick pushed out of the chair and wandered over to the rack of medicine balls and light weights leaning against the wall. He scoffed at them.

“They don’t look that heavy,” he muttered, toeing one with the edge of his sneaker.

Dick sent a quick glance around the room to make sure that no one was around. Not finding another soul in sight, he snagged one of the large weights and hefted it off the rack. Just holding his arm straight didn’t hurt too bad.

With a small step back, he planted his feet and took a breath. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he started to curl his hand upward.

A curse was ripped from his throat and he dropped the weight to the ground. He gripped his shoulder, breathing through the stinging pain.

“You know, it’s generally advised that you sort of, not do that.”

Dick jerked around at the newest voice to sneak up on him.

Across the room, leaning against the threshold of the door was another man. He was tall, taller than Dick, and broad shouldered. A lazy, amusement lingered around his sharp features. Dick had the feeling that that amusement was always there, three seconds from splitting those full lips into a smirk. With his slicked back hair and calculating eyes, the stranger felt dangerous and it set Dick on edge instantly.

But he could certainly see what Stephanie meant. The man must be Jason Todd because he was very good to look at.

Dick swallowed around his suddenly dry throat. “Just testing myself.”

“That’s my job. You must be Mr. Grayson.”

Dick nodded.

“I was warned that you’d be a tough one. Watching you try to lift a fifteen pound weight without me sorta proves that.”

Dick frowned, crossing his arms and steadfastly ignoring the throb that it caused. “I’m just here to keep my boss off my back.”

“The Commissioner, you mean.”

Jason pushed off the doorjamb. He closed the door and turned toward Dick. Clearly not expecting an answer, he stepped across the mats. His lean body moved easily, as if it had been honed to move perfectly.

“Yeah, he’s the one who told me. I’m Jason and you’re gonna be stuck with me for awhile.”

Not much more talking passed between the two men after that. Jason explained his process, which sounded easy enough to Dick but also completely unnecessary. Everything sounded like something he could do at home. In fact, he resolved to do just that as soon as he finished. He had weights at home; he could easily go through the moves on his own time.

Soon enough Jason was walking him through the first exercises—which was going a long way to shake Dick’s resolve to do everything at home. Even if Jason was slow and careful, everything hurt. His arm shook and could barely hold up anything over five pounds.

God forbid they try to do a single push up.

“You need to be wearing your sling,” Jason commented.

“I don’t need it,” Dick puffed out, face red as he concentrated on pulling the elastic band.

“Sure, you don’t. You shoulder is perfect,” Jason answered, watching Dick’s movements with a careful eye. He lifted a hand to catch his elbow and decreasing how far Dick was trying to pull back. “That’s why you’re as red as a cherry and breathing like a race horse after only three exercises.”

Fury unfurled in Dick’s chest and he shot a glare in Jason’s direction, who deflected it with a light shrug.

“I’d hesitate to compliment you. You might hit me.”

The tease does nothing to soothe Dick.

“I’ll do it anyway,” Jason said. “You are doing well but you need to take it slower. Shoulders and rotator cuffs take much longer to heal and you need to be nice to them.”

“I am nice to them,” Dick spat.

Jason arched an eyebrow at him. “Sure, you are. Look, whether you believe me or not, if you ever want to carry a gun in the field again, you’re going to have to take it much easier.”

That made Dick pause, his arm stilling. He glanced at Jason out of the corner of his eye. He hadn’t thought about the recoil in his gun. One shot would jar up his arm. Just thinking about it made him shudder. If he didn’t get his shoulder in working order, he wouldn’t be able to fire one again.

That meant desk work for the rest of his career. There was no way Dick was going to take himself off of active duty. He needed to be out in the city, needed to be out helping people. While he didn’t need the gun to do that, he did need permission from higher-ups and not a single higher-up in the world would let him out if he couldn’t properly handle a weapon or protect himself.

“We don’t have to sugar-coat this. I can help you go hard but you are going to have to be nice to yourself,” Jason stated, meeting Dick’s gaze. “And you’ve got to trust me.”

Dick opened his mouth, about to throw out some placating phrase that he did trust Jason but it was then that he realized that he didn’t. He didn’t at all. He fully expected Jason to pity him, to give some simpering report to Gordon and force him into bed rest for the next month. It made him close his mouth again.

“I’ll get you back into the field.”

The words rang in Dick’s ears for the rest of the appointment. They fluttered around his thoughts until he reached his apartment. They almost over powered his thoughts as he listened to the apologetic message from Barbara, telling him that her father, the Commissioner, had still put him on leave.

“It was the report from the therapist,” Barbara explained through his answering machine. “He said your shoulder needs more time to heal. Look… I’m sorry but stay home and get better. We’ll cover for you.”

“God damn,” Dick breathed, burying his face in one hand.

—

Dick did not go to physical therapy for two solid weeks. His excuse was that he was extremely busy, what with all the reports that he had to catch up on and all those files that he needed to organize. Reports and files that he shouldn’t have access to as it was, due to his enforced leave. Yet Dick had managed to sweet talk his way into getting, at the very least, some of his desk work sent home. It had taken a lot of puppy-dog eyes and one thousand watt smiles and a whole lot of ‘But Timmy’s before he finally had a giant file box shoved into his arms and his ass booted out the police department doors.

Once he had gotten everything home, Dick found that it was difficult to concentrate on the work at all. He felt stir-crazy. Not being out on the streets was really getting to him. He needed to be out, running around, finding the next crime scene and taking down the next criminal in a long line of never-ending criminals. Stuck in his apartment with a bum shoulder, which wasn’t as bad as everyone said it was, meant he couldn’t do anything but read a bunch of dry papers about past crimes that had already been taken care of.

“Work isn’t done until the fucker is tried and put behind bars,” Roy Harper had told him once. The UC cop had visited Gotham from Seattle following a case that had targeted McQueen Industries.

That case had been one of Dick’s favorites. Roy was a blast to be around back when they were teenagers but as an adult, he was a total riot. More of a mess than any one successful person had any right to be, Dick always looked forward to whatever case Roy brought his way.

But with his shoulder the way it was, there was a good chance that wasn’t going to be for a long while.

The phone had been going off ever since Gordon found out he’d skipped his second PT sessions.

“Two to three a week until we say otherwise,” Gordon had complained through the first phone conversation that Dick had made the mistake of answering.

When Gordon couldn’t get through to him, he’d enlisted the help of Barbara, Tim and, worse still, Alfred—the good-natured but rule strict butler that he’d grown up with after being adopted by Bruce Wayne. They had all called him at separate times to goad, cajole, sweet-talk, even threaten to get him to return to the clinic.

It only ended after one angry message from Babs who told him, “if you don’t go to PT, I’m going to make sure you don’t step even one inch inside of the PD, you pig-headed dumbass.”

Dick had gotten that message right after picking up his favorite Pad Thai and had been so furious that he’d almost thrown the whole meal right in the trash. He hated how much they were pushing him, how they tried to sympathize. None of them knew how frustrating everything was. How much he wanted to rip his own arm off and go back out on the streets. The pain bordered between ‘just barely acceptable’ and ‘off the charts excruciating’.

What was worse was that he was going to have to suffer through it all because some movie-star looking therapist had the gal to insist that he be placed on leave. What did the guy know anyway? He didn’t know that cops couldn’t be out that long. That the streets, nor the department, could afford to lose even one officer for more than a day—let alone one solid month.

For about the fifth time that day, Dick’s phone started to ring. He was laid out on his couch, holding a case file in one hand and a cold beer in another. He had no plans on answering.

Then came the knocking at his door.

Dick blinked, lowering the case file to his stomach. He tilted his head back to look at the front door, upside down, from the arm rest of the couch. His eyebrow was raised quizzically at what he was sure was just a mistake visit—probably another pizza guy getting the wrong unit number, again.

Another round of knocking sounded on the beleaguered wood.

“I know you’re in there. Open the door,” Jason Todd’s voice sounded from the other side.

Instantly Dick glared, all of the anger he’d been pushing aside welling back up. How dare the man who put him here dare to show up at his home. He had half a mind to tell the man to fuck off but that wouldn’t look very good in front of the neighbors and there was a good chance Patty would never lend him some sugar again if he did.

“What do you want?” Dick shouted from his couch.

“For you to answer the door,” Jason answered, after a brief pause.

“No.”

There was a heavy sigh from the other side and Dick could just imagine Jason pinching the bridge of his nose. Then there was a small intake of breath as Jason spoke again, “look, I’m not leaving until you answer. So unless you want one of your sweet old ladies to know the entire story and a few priceless embellishments—“

The door was ripped open at a speed that should have taken it completely off the hinges.

“Leave my neighbors out of this,” Dick hissed, quickly ushering Jason inside. Once the therapist was in, Dick sent a quick look around the hallway to make sure no one had seen before he closed the door. He turned back around to face Jason, crossing his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here?”

Jason paused in his curious search of Dick’s apartment to look back to the, visibly annoyed, police officer. He lifted a tray of coffee in one hand and a small box of doughnuts in the other.

“We’re going to our appointment,” he stated.

Dick scoffed, sweeping past him to tidy up the case file he’d dropped on the coffee table in his haste to move. He snagged his beer bottle and took a sip from it.

“Beer at eleven?” Jason asked, eyebrow raised.

Dick didn’t answer, moving into his kitchen. Anger was sticking in his throat, making his heart beat and his ears ring. He didn’t want some Casanova to come into his apartment and boss him around. Especially when said Casanova was one of the main sources of his troubles.

Behind him, he could hear Jason set the breakfast treats on the same table he’d just tidied, which only served to irritate him more.

“I can’t imagine that’s part of your medicine regime,” Jason continued as if he hadn’t been ignored.

“Shut—“ Dick didn’t get to finish his complaint before Jason had swooped forward to snag the beer from him. “Hey!”

Jason wiggled his eyebrows before throwing back a long gulp of the beer. He gave a satisfied sigh. “Man, you have good taste.”

“Not that good,” Dick muttered, eyeing Jason.

Despite his best efforts the man had been occupying a lot of his thoughts for the last two weeks. Everything from his soothing voice to how warm his hands had felt on the tight muscles of his back, plagued Dick during the darkest parts of his nights. It all only added to the growing list of perceived insults.

“Stop griping, I brought you food. A little bird told me that you’re a big fan of lemon-filled pastries.”

Tim, that conniving asshole, Dick realized. Only a few people within the department knew his address and that number got even smaller when adding in the note of what his favorite breakfast food was. Cereal was always a number one but when it came to a gift of placation it was specifically lemon-filled doughnuts from Mama’s. A quick glance confirmed that the bright pink box came from the very same place.

“Get out,” Dick stated, voice low.

Jason shook his head, setting the beer on the messy kitchen counter to cross his arms. With his slight height and definite weight over Dick, Jason looked fully prepared to stand his ground. That was something Dick couldn’t let happen, he needed the man out, now.

“I didn’t ask for you to come here. Get out,” Dick repeated, advancing one step on the other man, a trick that might have worked on a common thug but wasn’t working on the therapist.

Jason shook his head again. “No one did. I’m here because you’ve missed your last three appointments,” he explained, annoyance creeping into his features and voice.

“I don’t need them,” Dick scoffed.

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t!” Dick snapped, hands curling into fists at his sides. “What I need is some nosy therapist to keep out of my business and not tell my boss stupid information. You’re keeping me off the force! You are keeping me off the streets!”

Jason’s mouth opened for a moment before it clicked shut and he glared. “Me? I’m not doing anything other than my job! Your shoulder is a mess and it’s your fault that it’s staying that way.”

“It is not my fault! I was doing just fine!”

Jason snorted, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “Yeah, sure, honey—if you call ‘just fine’ as being unable to lift a weight higher than your own hip. I can’t even imagine what it looks like when you try to raise your arm over your head.”

The nickname and the truth of the statement hit Dick harder than he thought it would. He couldn’t believe the man in front of him. They weren’t even friends, just barely even acquaintances. He’d never heard anyone speak to him the way Jason was. It was maddening. It made him want to hit something.

“Don’t—“ Jason warned before Dick even realized that he was throwing out a first punch.

The knuckles of his good hand slammed into Jason’s jaw, knocking his head to the side.

There was only a moment of silence as both men processed what exactly just happened, then Jason leapt into action. The therapist gave as good as he got. He didn’t go easy on Dick just because of the injury and Dick was going to be damned if he was going to let his shoulder slow him down. The fight was nothing short of a bar brawl and Dick was very sure he was never going to get his security deposit back, especially after he kicked Jason, full-force, into his kitchen cabinets.

It was not going to be a long fight, even Dick knew that. His shoulder was already smarting and trying to block Jason’s wild hay-maker was only making it worse. He was breathing heavily, the urge to vomit lingering in his throat as he forced down the raging ache. He brought his hands up to block another hit but Jason shifted at the last second to sucker punch him right in the gut.

All at once he was laid out on the floor, Jason pinning him down and his own heart beat was ringing in his ears.

“Are you done?” Jason asked and Dick was pleased to see that he was panting, a bruise forming over one eyebrow and a heavy cut on one lip. He was not pleased, however, to see how good it looked on Jason. “You need to be done.”

Dick swallowed, ready to argue but then Jason pressed very lightly into his shoulder and he cried out.

“Okay! Okay, I’m done!” He gasped.

Jason eased back, sitting on Dick’s thighs. He lifted his hand to wipe the blood from his mouth, never taking his eyes off of Dick.

“This isn’t exactly kosher,” Jason said slowly, dropping his hands. “But you are being tough for no reason. You barely lasted two minutes in a fight. Seriously, what are you going to do on the streets?”

Dick glowered, turning his head to the side to avoid looking directly at Jason. He’d had the same thought since he’d gotten the injury. He didn’t want to admit that he might just have his shield taken entirely if he ever tried to go back out there with his body the way it was.

“Dick, seriously,” Jason tried again, voice much softer. He lowered one hand down to brush the hair off of Dick’s cheek. “I’m just trying to help you. Will you let me?”

Dick’s breath caught in his throat, eyes closing both at the touch and the words. Letting out a sigh, he gave a short nod.

“Yeah, I’ll let you help.”


	2. Chapter 2

It took two more days before Dick could convince himself to actually go to a therapy appointment. There were a lot of reasons that he could tell himself as to why he was avoiding the clinic. Yet he knew none of them held a candle to what Jason had promised him.

After the two of them had picked themselves up off the floor, Jason had helped Dick clean up his kitchen. The entire time, he tactfully ignored their fight and instead babbled on about a recent beer festival he’d been to. Locked up in his apartment, Dick had missed the event. He hadn’t been particularly interested in going but listening to Jason talk about it made him wish he’d gone. Or rather, made him wish he’d gone with Jason.

Once they had flopped themselves on the couch to enjoy the coffee and doughnuts Jason had quieted. It was a long enough silence that Dick started to grow uncomfortable.

“I can meet you tomorrow for an appointment,” Jason said slowly, carefully. His eyes were narrowed at the blank television screen.

Dick took a breath and leaned forward to grab a doughnut. His body ached, stomach tight from Jason’s well placed hit.

“Good for you?”

“Maybe,” Dick mumbled before quickly shoving the doughnut in his mouth.

Jason made a gruff noise, clearly unsatisfied. “Tell you what, you go to a week of appointments with me and you can take me out on a date.”

Dick choked around the pastry. He turned wide eyes onto Jason, cheeks bulging. He didn’t manage to find his words before Jason reached up to press the tip into his finger into Dick’s face.

“Cute look, chipmunk,” Jason teased, giving Dick a look that was too teasing and too sensual for the occasion.

With a hard, thick swallow, Dick took a quick gulp of his coffee so he could gather up a response. It didn’t come out as elegantly as he’d hoped.

“What?”

Jason dropped his hand back to his lap. He nodded, “just what I said. You make it through the appointments and we can go out on the town as a reward. Your treat.”

“Why am I taking you out? Shouldn’t you be taking me out?” Dick asked.

One of Jason’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, his lips curled in that secret amusement that always lingered under the surface. “Do you want me to take you out?” He returned.

Heat rose to Dick’s cheeks. He’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t thought about it. Jason was practically everything Dick looked for in a man, at least physically. It had been an entertaining thought during his less moody moments but then the annoyance would come flooding back and he was mentally drawing devil horns and cheesy mustaches on Jason’s face.

“I doubt you could handle a night out with me,” Dick replied.

That made the smirk grow. “Sounds like a good challenge. I’ll take it.”

Dick sat back, eyeing Jason. In their short time together, he couldn’t find where they stood with each other.

“Come to a week of appointments,” Jason repeated, “and I promise to take you out for the night.”

Jason had left not much later. They’d finished the breakfast, chatting easily as they did so. Therapy wasn’t brought up again--Jason seemed satisfied that he’d be seeing Dick at the clinic again. Instead they’d traded stories, throwing out their own tales about Gotham. He learned that, unlike himself, Jason had been in Gotham his entire life. There was something quietly guarded about Jason but Dick didn’t mind, it only made his interest grow. The more he listened to Jason, the more he wanted to learn about him.

Now Dick was sitting in his empty apartment again, files and dirty dishes spread around him. Despite Alfred’s best efforts, he’d never quite managed to glean any sort of cleanliness. He was holding his phone in his hands glaring at it.

At some point he’d have to make the appointment. If he wanted to get back to his job, or at the very least see Jason again, he’d have to call.

Just as he moved his thumb to activate his phone it started to vibrate violently. Dick jerked, almost dropping it.

“H-hello?”

“Hiya! This is Stephanie from the clinic,” the cheerful blond answered him. “I’m calling to set up your appointment.”

Dick’s brow furrowed, mouth working uselessly for a moment. Taking a breath he flopped back against the couch and shoved his free hand through his hair.

“Aren’t I supposed to call you?” Dick asked.

In his ear, Stephanie grumbled, “usually but you’re taking sixteen years to do it.”

Dick chuckled, lowering his hand onto the couch. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not. So, do you want to set up an appointment or not?”

Silence dropped over the two of them for a moment. On the other side of the line, Dick could hear idle conversation and a beeping fax. The quiet hum of an office was oddly comforting, it was like a quiet day at the PD. He could just picture Babs talking to a citizen while Tim tottered around with his ever growing pile of work and Helena, feet propped up on her desk, listened to some bizarre new electro song. He’d never see that simplicity again if he didn’t get his shoulder back in working order.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“Huh? Really?”

It was Dick’s turn to grumble, “yeah. I’ll make an appointment.”

“Great! How about today at four?”

Dick spluttered, bolting up in his seat. “That’s in a half hour!”

“Sure is. See you soon!” Stephanie dropped the line, leaving Dick to gape uselessly at his living room.

Once he’d collected himself, he dropped his phone onto the cushion beside him. He gripped his knees, unsure if he could bring himself to follow through and actually go to the clinic. But a steady well of guilt was building up inside of him.

“Christ, fine!”

Dick shoved himself off the couch. He scrubbed his face and made a furious noise. In a matter of minutes, he’d showered, changed and hurried out his front door. Normally he’d take his motorcycle down but riding one handed wasn’t something he had a ton of confidence in. The public bus would be just fine.

\---

“You’re late,” Stephanie chided from behind the front desk the moment he stepped through the clinic door, setting off a quiet chime.

“By, like, five minutes,” Dick glowered, cheeks a little red from the short jog he’d taken from the bus stop.

Stephanie waved him off. She got out of her seat and stepped around the desk to meet him. The look she gave him was critical but not unkind. Whatever she found she seemed satisfied.

“Come on, he just finished up his previous appointment,” she said, resting a hand on his lower back and all but shoving him through the door to the hallway.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Dick asked, stumbling slightly.

“I have a date and I, unlike you, keep my appointments,” She replied. The rather pointed way that she said her words implied far more than just that day.

“Tim’s told you about me, hasn’t he?” Dick hazarded.

Stephanie grinned up at him. “Way more than you’d like to know,” she answered as she pulled open the door to the training floor. “Get on in there!”

The training room beyond the door was empty, save for Jason who was at the far end of the room packing away some equipment. The other patient must have cleared out awhile before Dick got there. It was a quiet space that seemed out of sorts with the busy streets that surrounded the clinic.

A lot of the peaceful notes that Dick had missed on his first visit were greeting him now.

The floors were padded, plush and soft under Dick’s sneakered feet. Some kind of gentle piano jazz was playing over speakers that he could see tucked into the ceiling corners. A sweet, musky scent lingered in the air. It worked to ease his muscles, chasing away the fluttering in his stomach. With a jolt, Dick realized it was the same smell that followed Jason around. Instead of the fear he thought would come, he felt soothed by the fact.

When the door closed behind Stephanie, Jason looked up. There was a short pause before his face cleared and he sent a lopsided smile Dick’s way.

The fluttering was back but for an entirely different reason.

“Thought you’d never show up,” he commented.

Dick cleared his throat, shoving his hands into the pockets of his exercise pants. “I didn’t think I would either.”

“What changed your mind?” Jason asked, making his way over to Dick.

“Stephanie.”

That drew a chuckle from Jason, the sound low and sultry. Dick watched with rapt attention as Jason came to a stop in front of him, brushing his hair back away from his forehead. The shift of muscles under his shirt made Dick’s mouth go dry.

“She does that,” Jason said, lowering his hand again and cutting into Dick’s thoughts.

“She’s not so bad.”

Jason shook his head, “no, not at all. I like her.”

Unbidden a curl of jealousy settled in Dick’s stomach. He knew where it came from but he didn’t want to admit it to himself. Still, he wanted Jason to praise him. He wanted to know that Jason liked him just as much as Dick was starting to.

“Just don’t tell her I said that. She and her girlfriend will never let me live it down. It’ll totally ruin my rebellious image.”

All at once the jealousy disappeared. Dick blinked and stared at him. To cover his shock, he very obviously eyed Jason up and down.

“I think the image is already ruined,” Dick pointed out.

Jason looked aghast, pressing a hand to his chest in mock hurt.

“You’re wearing floral Nike’s.”

Jason’s gaze dropped down to the floor. He pointed one foot out, turning it to observe the pattern covering his shoe. Not seeing anything wrong with it, he shrugged and straightened again.

“Sue me,” he stated. “But before we go to court, let’s get this session out of the way.”

Dread pooled in the back of Dick’s throat, dripping down into his chest. As much as he’d resigned himself to getting PT out of the way, he hadn’t really done much to prepare himself for actual work. For as much as he’d told himself over and over that Jason had already proven himself a good trainer and that he needed to get his shoulder back in good working order, he still wasn’t quite ready to take the plunge.

Some of the uneasiness must of shown on his features because Jason seemed to soften around the edges. He moved a hand to Dick’s lower back, the touch was light without demanding anything.

“We’ll go over to the floor and do some simple stretches to start then we’ll see how far you get with the weights today.”

Dick breathed out a relieved sigh. He nodded and moved with Jason’s gentle guiding over to the floor.

Just as he’d feared, the stretches were painful. Every shift was brutal and burned in away that promised to linger for days. Sometimes it was a good burn but not always. Yet he didn’t want to give up; especially when Jason’s praise rattled around in Dick’s ears.

As Jason walked him through the exercises, stretches starting from head to toe, he chatted with Dick. His voice and stories went a long way toward easing Dick’s nerves. Much like before they traded stories with each other. Dick discovered that Jason’s favorite color was lavender and he hated when his socks got wet. The conversation came easily between them and, for the first time in a long time, Dick didn’t think about his work and how long the road ahead would be.

Jason made him feel comfortable and brought out a determination to be better. It had been a long time since someone had done that for him.

“You don’t have to stretch so far,” Jason said. He was kneeling down beside Dick, one hand just below the ruined shoulder, the other on the floor, keeping himself balanced. His eyes were trained on Dick’s hands which were gripping his calves, trying to push himself enough to reach his ankles.

“I used to be able to touch my nose to my knees,” Dick grit out.

“Impressive, but not what I need from you right now.”

“It’s what I need from myself.”

A very quiet, annoyed sound escaped Jason. He pulled his hand away and immediately Dick missed the warm pressure.

“Sit up, we’ll do a different stretch.”

Dick started to move but Jason stopped him.

“Slowly. Sit up slowly,” Jason commented in the tone of voice that suggested that he had said if a million times. Admittedly, he had but Dick had been largely ignoring it.

As Dick straightened, he realized he probably should’ve listened a lot sooner. He was grateful for the hand Jason laid on his chest and lower back, guiding him and straightening him in a pace that worked with his body instead of against it.

“Sit up straight and keep your legs like they are now.”

Dick did as he was told, keeping his hand loose on his lap. He was acutely aware of Jason’s presence beside him. Of course, he’d been aware of it since the beginning but without a stretch or an exercise to focus on, he was suddenly hyper focused on it.

The focus sharpened as Jason shifted to sit behind him. He was close enough that Dick could feel his body heat through his shirt.

“All right, raise your arms up a little,” Jason said. “Straighten them out. We’re gonna raise your hands to the ceiling.”

Dick frowned, not seeing what that would do. With his arms out on either side, nothing hurt yet. Then Jason started to slowly lift his arms up. One hand under each bicep, fingers loosely curled, he started to press upward.

“Breathe out,” Jason reminded quietly and seemingly far too close to his ear. “Let me know when you can’t go anymore.”

When Jason didn’t say anything, Jason continued. Dick’s arms were almost pointed to the ceiling when he gasped out a ‘stop’.

Jason’s hands shifted to lower Dick’s arms again slowly. The ache eased slightly and Jason held his arms in that position.

“Hold this position for five seconds,” Jason said, still holding his arms.

The seconds seemed to take years to Dick. His shoulder had reached it’s limit for the day and, honestly, his heart had too. Jason was close behind him, that sweet scent thick and filling his nose. His hands felt strong on his arms. The brush of Jason’s voice in his ears was adding to a quickly mounting level that Dick wasn’t totally ready to deal with yet.

“Very good,” Jason hummed, slow and luxurious. “You’re doing so well.”

Dick bit his lip, thankful that Jason was behind him. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to pull himself away but also lean back against the broad chest he’d been doing his best to ignore for the past hour.

The sound of someone knocking on the door was the only thing that saved Dick. Jason let go and sat back. Dick instantly dropped his hands to the mat.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Crane is on the phone. He wants to talk to you about his son,” a new voice called, a deep woman’s voice. She didn’t open the door and proceeded to shout at Jason through it instead.

“Thanks Dinah, I’ll wrap up here and then I’ll call him back.”

“Oh no! You’re answering him now. There is no way I’m going to have to tell him that he’s going to have to wait.”

Jason chuckled. “Okay, okay! Give me literally a minute.”

“One minute exactly!”

Jason brushed his hand through his hair again and pushed himself to his feet. He lowered one hand to Dick in a silent offer.

There was a moment where Dick considered not taking it. He had a fear that moment that he touched Jason, he was going to unravel. In the end, he took his hand and let himself be pulled up.

“Sorry to cut it short,” Jason said, looking apologetic.

Dick waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. You’re a busy man.”

“Not really, just one with terrible timing.”

That pulled a smile from Dick. He opened his mouth to speak but Jason spoke first, almost in a rush.

“You did great today. Really great. Good job.” Jason gripped Dick’s good shoulder for a moment that was far longer than needed.

Dick’s throat dried up. He licked his lips, swallowing thickly. He nodded, knowing that his face was heating up.

“Thanks,” he said. “I had a good teacher.”

That lopsided grin was back.

Before another word could pass between them, Dinah knocked on the door again. Jason grimaced and he turned away.

“Can you see yourself out?”

“I think I can manage.”

Jason sent him one last pleased look. He turned and hurried to the door. Dick watched him leave, eyes glued to his broad shoulders and tight backside the whole time.


End file.
